06 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

My friends, I greet you this evening in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our lesson comes to us from the 38th Chapter of Job.  Storms.  Things that tend to be familiar in our lives.  Some are more sever than others, but I willing to bet that every single one of us are familiar with storms.

Driving out to our vicarage Mindy, David and I found ourselves staring into some very ominous looking clouds just outside of Omaha.  It was a storm unlike anything we had seen before.  There was even a green strip that went across the sky.  It wasn’t long and the rain fell so hard and so fast that it was nearly impossible to see.  The hail fell with a furry and the next thing we know, we are huddled in a flimsy rest stop waiting for the storm to pass.  Needless to say that add some excitement to our road trip, but the wrath of nature is not the only kind of storms that we face in our lives.  What would you list as some of those other storms?

You see, this is what had happened to Job.  He had been through a storm of sorts.  It was a rather terrible storm.  For in one day, Job’s life was completely ravaged.  He lost his oxen and donkeys, then he learned of his sheep and servants beings consumed by fire, then the people from Babylon came and took his camels, and if that were not enough, Job’s sons and daughters were all killed.  This happened to Job on one day. 

What was Job’s response?  What would your response have been?  Job fell on the ground and worshiped.  Another day, Job was inflicted with terrible and painful sores.  They covered his entire body, from the soles of his feet to the top of his hand.  And Job curses the day he was born.  And what would you say that Job’s question is?  It is simple, “Why?”  Job has three friends show up and they basically tell him, it is his fault..  They say, “Surely you must have sinned, because this kind of stuff only happens to sinners, and God is punishing you.  You must repent.” 

But Job knew, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.  At least, not along the line that his friends were thinking.  He also knew that they were flat wrong.  Job’s friends didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand how God worked.  They were trying to sell a theology of glory; a theology that says God rewards good, and punishes bad. 

But that is not how God works.  Basically there was no reason, that they knew of, as to why this happened.  And so finally after several chapters of Job’s friends talking their trash.  We get to chapter 38.  We get to God’s answer.  And what is his answer to the question?  He basically challenges Job.  He says, “Who are you to question the things that I do?”  Now that is a paraphrase.  But it is the gist. 

So what do you think?  Do you like that answer?  What do we do with it?  Well we can see it in one of two ways I think.  One is to see it in a way that says, “That is not a very good answer.”  The other way to see it is in the sense of comfort.  To see this answer as saying, “Even though we do not understand the storms that rage against us, nothing that happens is outside of the control of God.”  In my mind, it is a much better answer. And this is the direction that the Scriptures are really going in. 

You see the last four verses in this section deal with the sea.  In the ancient world, the sea was the symbol of chaos.  It is never at rest.  There was no controlling it.  It was a force to be reckoned.  If you wanted an ultimate symbol for unrest and something out of control, it was the sea.  So for God to speak of his ability to control the sea, for him to mention how he prescribed its boundaries gives to us a word of comfort because even the most uncontrollable of situations is not beyond his control.

Now I realize that this doesn’t directly answer the question of why the things that happened to Job were allowed to happen.  Nor does it provide for us an answer to why questions that we ask.  But it does provide us a source of comfort, because it re-affirms that even though we don’t know the why, even though the storms that rage against us are out of our control.  They are not out of God’s control.  That isn’t too shabby.

And you know what that is not the only answer that God gives.  I mean telling us that nothing is outside of his control is not his only answer.  There is more.  You see, in addition to the reassurance of God’s control, we also have the assurance of God’s presence in our lives.  He has promised to always be with us, to never forsake us, so that nothing we face, no matter what the storm, that will not separate us from his love in Christ Jesus.

And what a great love that is.  It is so much that he would die on the cross and be raised again so that we would receive forgiveness of sins, and have our relationship with him restored.  Not because we are good enough. Not because we have done anything to deserve this, as Job’s friends thought, but because of how great our God is. 

So what do we do, when the storms rage?  We take refuge in our God.  We find strength in his presence, and in the fact that nothing is beyond his control.  There are no promises that we will not be touched by the storms that rage in life, but there are promises that we will never have to face them alone. 

Pastor Rob Bell has another thought along this line.  And it is a good one.  Here is what he has to say about this topic…

In the midst of the storms of life, our God is with us.  And he always will be.  He knows the way home.  And though we don’t always know all the answers, we do know our God.  And in him we have all we need.  May he richly bless you with his love, grace and presence.  Now and always.  Amen.